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Is social media affecting your mental health?

Friday, 27 January 2017

Its actually scary now how many young people want to change their bodies or look at certain way, just because of the impact of social media. We have all seen those perfect instagram accounts, perfect bodies, perfect hair, perfect everything, but perfect doesn't exist. Its fake. I'm hoping from this post you will have a lil more self confidence about yourself, because what you see on social media isn't always real.

As girls we are CONSTANTLY comparing ourselves to everyone, the most unhealthiest thing we can ever do. The harsh reality is, we can't change who we are or the way we look, we need to appreciate our bodies and faces, getting upset over someone else will never change anything. I want you to look in the mirror and instead of crying over what you see, tell yourself one positive thing. Your probably thinking what the hell does that do, until you do it you'll see. It starts to give you a little bit of faith in yourself and slowly pushes the negativity out. When you suffer with BDD its almost impossible to tell yourself you look ok, but please just try at least once a day it can change SO much for you.

Now lets talk instagram, on instagram everything looks pretty much perfect, why? filters my friends. I hold my hands up to this as I use an app called Facetune to whiten my photos backgrounds. However, I don't edit my face or anything about my body. I don't put filters over my face, that's the real me and I think this is so important, but I also more than understand why people use filters, because they are so insecure and that is ok but its making more people believe flaws don't exist and flaws do exist, doesn't mean they are ugly!

When I post fashion shoots on my blog, none of those are edited, that's me in normal daylight, doing my thing outside a bloody shed. Why don't I edit my pale skin? Or the spots on my skin? Because I'm not going to create an image of myself that's not real, I want people to recognise me in the street for what they see on my social media. Most importantly I upload raw photos to give you guys confidence that is more than fine to upload pictures not edited.

Its very easy to get lost within social media, we validate our looks from how many likes we receive or how many followers we have, how ridiculous is that? Why do we feel amazing if we get over a certain amount of likes? It shouldn't be like this and its so damaging to your mental health.

I saw a few months ago a girl on This Morning who took over 100 selfies a day to make herself feel better, why is this generation so caught up in looks? Its so scary that even 10 year olds are worried about their weight or want plastic surgery on their faces. I started tackling BDD when I was 14, my insecurities never really came from social media, mine were from what people thought of me and whether they liked me or not, but as I've grown up yes I've become a victim of social media, I will upset myself by browsing through models photos and looking down at my own stomach thinking is this fine? will my boyfriend leave me for a girl like this?

If you feel social media is affecting your mental health too much, take time away from it, because it can be really damaging. But, there are so many amazing bloggers, so many good people on social media who will do anything to make you feel better about yourself including me. Please remember what you see on social media isn't always real, its very easy to edit out the bad parts of your life. Unfollow accounts that make you feel rubbishy.

Don't try and live up to body 'expectations' please learn no one is perfect.

These photos are from a photography project I did on how damaging social media can be to your mental health x